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The Partridge Family

The Partridge Family is an American musical-sitcom starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy. Jones played a widowed mother, and Cassidy played the oldest of her five children who embarked on a music career. It ran from September 25, 1970, until March 23, 1974, on the ABC network as part of a Friday-night lineup, and had subsequent runs in syndication. The family was loosely based on the real-life musical family The Cowsills, a popular band in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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In the pilot episode, a group of musical siblings in the fictitious city of San Pueblo, California (said to be "40 miles from Napa County" in episode 24, A Partridge By Any Other Name) convinces their widowed mother, bank teller Shirley Partridge, to help them out by singing as they record a pop song in their garage. Through the efforts of precocious 10-year-old Danny they find a manager, Reuben Kincaid, who helps make the song a Top 40 hit. After more persuading, Shirley agrees that the family can go on tour. They acquire an old school bus, a 1957 Chevrolet[1] Series 6800 Superior, for touring, paint it with Mondrian-inspired patterns, and head to Las Vegas, Nevada for their first live gig at Caesars Palace.

Subsequent episodes usually feature the band performing in various venues or in their garage. The shows often contrast suburban life with the adventures of a show-business family on the road. After the first season, more of the show's action takes place in their hometown than on tour.

Created for television by Bernard Slade, the series' executive producer was Bob Claver. The show was inspired by and loosely based on The Cowsills,[2]:51–52 a family pop music group that was famous in the late 1960s. In the show's early development, the Cowsill children were considered by the producers, but because the Cowsills were not trained actors and were too old for the roles as scripted, Slade and Claver abandoned that idea.[3]Shirley Jones had already been signed as mother Shirley Partridge and star of the show.

The pilot was filmed in December 1969. This unaired pilot differs from the pilot broadcast in 1970. In the unaired pilot, Shirley's name is "Connie" and she has a boyfriend played by Jones' real-life husband at the time, Jack Cassidy, father of David Cassidy. Laurie mentions her late father once getting drunk at a Christmas party, and the family has a different address and live in Ohio.[4] The unaired pilot is unavailable on home video.

The show proved popular, but the fame took its toll on several, if not most, of the starring cast, particularly David Cassidy. In the midst of his rise to fame, Cassidy soon felt stifled by the show and trapped by the mass hysteria surrounding his every move.[2]:92–95 In May 1972, he appeared nude on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in a cropped Annie Leibovitz photo. He used the article to get away from his squeaky clean image.[2]:167 Among other things, the article mentions Cassidy was riding around New York in the back of a car "stoned and drunk."[5]

Shortly after the series ended, scriptwriter Roberta Tatum launched a lawsuit against Screen Gems concerning the creation of the show. Tatum claimed that she had submitted a similar premise to Screen Gems prior to 1970 called Baker's Half-Dozen. The matter was resolved out of court, with Tatum receiving a reported $150,000 from Screen Gems.[6]

On the show's soundtrack and records, none of the actors actually played the indicated instruments, and only Jones and primarily Cassidy sang. The actors pretended while listening to recordings by session musicians who provided the real vocal and instrumental music attributed to The Partridge Family.

Bobby Sherman appeared in the last episode of the first season (Episode 25) as struggling songwriter Bobby Conway. This episode led into a short-lived spinoff series on ABC, Getting Together, starring Sherman and Wes Stern as Bobby Conway's business partner Lionel Poindexter.

At the end of the first season, Jeremy Gelbwaks' family moved out of the Los Angeles area, and the part of Chris was recast with actor Brian Forster. According to David Cassidy, Gelbwaks "had a personality conflict with every person in the cast and the producers" and especially did not get along with Cassidy or Bonaduce.[2]:87 A dog named Simone was featured in the first season, but it was phased out during the second season. At the beginning of the fourth season, a four-year-old neighbor, Ricky Stevens (Ricky Segall), was featured and would sing a children's song during each episode, but the character was dropped mid-season.

Music recorded for the pilot episode was produced by Monkees' producer Shorty Rogers. Songs for the ongoing series were recorded by music producer Wes Farrell.

The Partridge Family songs heard in the show, and on the several Partridge Family singles and albums, were not performed as seen on-screen. Actor David Cassidy sang lead on most of the records, and actor Shirley Jones can be heard on a few. But the other voices and all the instruments were recorded by session musicians.

The Partridge Family's instrumental sound was provided by musicians informally known as The Wrecking Crew, who did many of the pop hits of the day attributed to other performers. The actors pretended to play their instruments.

None of the actors sang background; they lip-synched to recorded singing by The Love Generation, AKA The Ron Hicklin Singers, composed of brothers John and Tom Bahler, Jackie Ward (who as Robin Ward had a #14 hit "Wonderful Summer" on Dot Records in 1963 [7]), and Ron Hicklin.

Actor David Cassidy was originally to lip sync with the rest of the cast, but convinced Farrell that he could sing and was allowed to join the studio ensemble as the lead singer.[2]:56–60 He and his step-mother, Shirley, are the only two show actors allowed to sing for recording.

The Partridge Family theme song, produced by Rogers, was shown over opening credits. More than one song was used as the theme song. Season 1 episodes feature the song "When We're Singin'", which was replaced in subsequent seasons with "C'mon Get Happy".

"Five of us, and Mom working all day,
we knew we could help her if our music would pay,
Danny got Reuben to sell our song, and it really
came together when Mom sang along..." (from "When We're Singin'")

Later, under Farrell's direction, the new version had new lyrics sung to the "When We're Singin'" tune. With the new chorus finalized, "C'mon Get Happy" showcased the new verse:

For its final season, ABC moved the show from its 8:30 pm Friday night slot (where it rated first in its timeslot) to Saturday at 8:00 pm (opposite CBS' top-rated All in the Family, with which it could not compete successfully). After the show's popularity began to decline in the US, it began to increase in the UK. This new popularity in the UK gave them five UK Top 20 Hits, some of which were less popular in the States.

After 96 episodes and eight Partridge Family albums, ABC canceled the show.

Nickelodeon featured a run of The Partridge Family from 1993 to 1994 as part of its Nick at Nite lineup. The network used interviews and commercials featuring cast members, and created a new version of the bus for promotion. The show also aired at various times on Fox Family, Ion Television, and Hallmark Channel. As of January 2011[update], it airs on Antenna TV. FETV also started airing The Partridge Family in December 2017.

When the digital subchannel Antenna TV premiered in January 2011, The Partridge Family became one of its offerings through the network's distribution agreement with Sony Pictures Television (parent company and successor of series producer Screen Gems).[8][9][10][11]

The Partridge Family was produced for ABC by Screen Gems. The company promoted the show by releasing a series of albums featuring the family band, though David Cassidy and Shirley Jones, who sang background, were the only cast members who were actually featured on the recordings.[2]:56–60

As the show and other associated merchandising soared, David Cassidy became a teen idol.[2]:68–73 The producers signed Cassidy as a solo act as well. Cassidy began touring with his own group of musicians, performing Partridge songs as well as hits from his own albums, to thousands of screaming teenagers in major stadiums across the USA, UK, Europe, Japan and Australia.

Though Danny Bonaduce was not part of the session band, he also got a recording contract, and released a self-titled album in 1972, Danny Bonaduce. Though Bonaduce was credited as lead singer on all songs, he insists that he had a weak voice and that Bruce Roberts provided most of the vocals on the album. The first track, "I'll Be Your Magician", in which the 13-year-old Bonaduce seduces a woman into having sexual intercourse with him, has developed a cult following for its campy entertainment value. The original, watered-down, version was recorded with Cassidy for the Sound Magazine album, but was discarded and never released. In fall 2010, Cassidy dared Bonaduce to learn how to play the bass guitar lines on the songs the Partridge Family performed. Bonaduce learned the bass guitar line for "Doesn't Somebody Want to Be Wanted", stating that although he had no ability to read music, the song was relatively easy to learn; Cassidy and Bonaduce subsequently performed together on rare occasions.[17]

The Partridges had a brief resurgence in animated form which saw the family propelled into the future. The animated Partridges first appeared when the kids did a series of guest spots on Goober and the Ghost Chasers. That idea evolved into a CBS Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera-produced cartoon in 1974, Partridge Family 2200 A.D. (also called The Partridge Family in Outer Space when rerun later as part of Fred Flintstone and Friends). Shirley Jones and David Cassidy did not voice their animated and Susan Dey and Dave Madden had very limited involvement with this cartoon.

Released in 1971 by Milton Bradley, The Partridge Family Game offers a glimpse of what life on the road was like for one of TV’s favorite fictional pop bands. The back of the box explains, “As on TV, many happenings occur to the Partridge family, this game describes one of them. They have finished playing at a local arena and must hurry to their BUS to get traveling again. On the way, they may have some delays.” The object of the game is to be the first player to get back to the tour bus.[18]

Charlton Comics produced a comic book featuring The Partridge Family between March 1971 and December 1973. It features stories about the characters, song lyrics and features about David Cassidy.[19] The drawings were provided by Don Sherwood. [20][21]

Three years after the show's cancellation, Shirley Jones and other cast members gathered with cast members of My Three Sons for the ABC special Thanksgiving Reunion with The Partridge Family and My Three Sons, that aired on November 25, 1977. The show featured the casts discussing the histories of their shows, although other than Jones and Fred MacMurray both portraying single parents of large families, the two series had no narrative link.

In 1995, a majority of the cast appeared on Bonaduce's talk show Danny!, including Shirley Jones, Dave Madden, Jeremy Gelbwaks, Brian Forster, Suzanne Crough, Ricky Segall and the show's executive producer Bob Claver. Susan Dey was working on a movie at the time but called into the show to briefly reminisce with Bonaduce. David Cassidy was also unable to appear as he was working on a new album at that time.

In 2004, VH1 produced a pilot for a syndicated The New Partridge Family, starring Suzanne Sole as Shirley, Leland Grant as Keith, Emma Stone as Laurie and Spencer Tuskowski as Danny. The pilot was the only episode produced.

On October 15, 2013, Sony released The Partridge Family – The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.[22] The 12-disc set features all 96 episodes of the series as well as bonus features.

The Screen Gems closing logo was removed from episodes for the first three seasons on DVD.

On August 27, 2013, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library including The Partridge Family.[23] They subsequently re-released the first two seasons on June 24, 2014.[24]

On September 22, 2015, Mill Creek re-released Partridge Family- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 with the original Screen Gems logo reinstated at the end of the credits. No U.S. DVD releases contain the epilogue to episode #25 (which does appear on Region 2 & 4 releases), nor the unaired 1969 pilot, nor any episodes of the spin-off series Getting Together.[25]